Posted
by
timothyon Sunday June 17, 2012 @12:57AM
from the everyone's-a-critic dept.

sciencehabit writes "Dating experts working in Spain, using a technique relatively new to archaeology, have pushed dates for the earliest cave art back some 4000 years to at least 41,000 years ago, raising the possibility that the artists were Neandertals rather than modern humans. And a few researchers say that the study argues for the slow development of artistic skill over tens of thousands of years — not a swift acquisition of talent, as some had argued."

Now to avoid the lameness filter comma I apostrophe m going to have to say something productive mdash or at least make a more extended version of the parent apostrophe s joke stop carriage return Nope nothing productive comes to mind stop

Neandertal is a valley close to Düsseldorf, Germany. In 1901, an orthographic reform changed the name from Neanderthal to Neandertal ("Tal" is German for "valley"). The Neanderthal man however had been discovered long before and keeps his original name with the "th".

It may be appropriate to note that Germans typically don't pronounce "th" as Americans do. It's like "we" versus "whee", the "h" part is an aspiration mark. A common spelling error, for English-speaking Germans, is to put a "th" in where a "t" sound belongs. Neanderthal has always been pronounced Neandertal, they just changed the spelling.

Ehem, sorry, as a native German speaker I feel the need to add that the h in "th" is not an aspiration marker. Phonetically, there is no difference between"t" and "th" in German. It's just a relic of orthography. Both are pronounced as unvoiced alveolar plosive/t/.

Neandertal is and has always been the correct spelling. It's nothing new. It's from the German, from the place where they were first discovered, the Neander Valley, or Neander "Tal" ('Tal' means valley in German). However, in German it is common and appropriate to combine words to form compound nouns, as Fahrrad, (from 'fahrt', a trip, and 'rad', wheel) or Schadenfreude (from 'Schade', sadness, and 'Freude', joy). Hence, the words are combined to form the place-name of Neandertal. The spelling with the 'h' is anglicized, technically Neandertal is correct, inasmuch as it is the original name, from the original language.

Why not educate yourself before correcting other people's spelling, smart-ass...

Ouch. Fortunately my education is on my side on this one. The Germans can spell and pronounce the name of their valley however they want, but the scientific name of the Neanderthals is "Homo Neanderthalensis", and when using the name outside of the scientific community either way is acceptable, although the hard 't' sound and spelling has only entered popular usage relatively recently. You can look it up on wikipedia if you want - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal [wikipedia.org]. If it makes you feel better you can

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

Not accurate. "Schaden" just means "harm" or "damage". And in this context, a better translation for "Freude" would be "pleasure".

Neandertal is and has always been the correct spelling. [...] The spelling with the 'h' is anglicized, technically Neandertal is correct, inasmuch as it is the original name, from the original language.

Not correct. It used to be 'Neanderthal' in German before the spelling reform of 1901. This spelling has been kept in some places, e.g. for the local train station. The English speaking world has just kept the old spelling, which is consistent with the scientific name.

There have been vandals as long as there have been things to vandalise...

Neanderthals lived in social groups so there were Neanderthal kids being dragged around by Neanderthal parents and this was before the internet and even before TV... you work it out - bored kids + pristine cave walls !

The artwork dates to when neanderthals were in Europe, but not before the earliest evidence of homo sapiens in Europe.

It seems unlikely that the art was done by neanderthals, and if it was it was probably done by neanderthals imitating homo sapiens. (there is a reason that "to ape' means to copy.

I make this assumption based on the fact that cave art seems to show up with other evince of homo sapiens, but there have been no finds of cave art that are dated earlier than any evidence of humans.

Also, the theory of complexity of art is obviously pulled out of said scientists arses . Scientists that claim that an drawing of a circle as art predates recognizable drawings of the physical world are obviously more recent need to take a look at the verifiable date of the Mona Lisa, and any single geometric shape at a MOMA and explain why their hypothosis that directly contradicts verifiable data about artwork should be viewed as anything other than B.S.

The artwork dates to when neanderthals were in Europe, but not before the earliest evidence of homo sapiens in Europe.

It seems unlikely that the art was done by neanderthals, and if it was it was probably done by neanderthals imitating homo sapiens. (there is a reason that "to ape' means to copy.

I make this assumption based on the fact that cave art seems to show up with other evince of homo sapiens, but there have been no finds of cave art that are dated earlier than any evidence of humans.

You come across as very prejudiced and biased - and also wrong.TFA states that this happened at least 41,000 years ago, and the oldest human (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) remains found in Europe is no more than 36,000 years old.

Another issue is that you can't apply a dualistic "either/or" - humans of European heritage have from 1-4% Neanderthal DNA. While this isn't a significant portion, it does show that interbreeding was possible and happened, and there must have been fertile individuals who were 50% of each.But based solely on the age, the evidence points more towards Neanderthals than modern man.

The oldest evidence of modern humans in Europe is over 43.000, not 36.000 years old. There is no evidence that the Neandertal was responsible for the Aurigniac, but a lot of evidence that connects the Aurigniac with modern humans.

What evidence? What I see in that article is speculation and begging the question by presuming that a set of infant teeth is from h. s. sapiens and then using that as evidence for h. s. sapiens were present at that time.

Wikipedia has this (I know better than to take Wikipedia as gospel, but they have some references too):

"There is no longer certainty regarding the identity of the humans who produced the Aurignacian culture, even though the presumed westward spread of anatomically modern humans (AMHs) acros

we can consider Chihuahuas, Old English Sheepdogs and Irish Wolfhounds the same species

All dogs and wolves are, by some definitions at least, considered the same species because they can collaborate in producing a fertile descendant. Chihuahas can't mate with Great Danes, but the Chihuaha can mate with a smallish dog, which mates with a medium-sized dog, which mates with a largish dog, which mates with a Great Dane, and that's enough to make them the same species.

If we killed all the dogs in the world except the Chihuaha and the Great Dane, the survivors would be two separate species. In othe

That is why you will see some people refer to modern humans as Homo sapiens sapiens, and Neanderthals as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.

From the other end of the same (zoom) telescope, the term "Anatomically Modern Human" is used a lot, particularly in areas where the "modern/ Neanderthal" dichotomy is not established. As a descriptive term, it's much less loaded than implying species membership, breeding isolation and a whole host of other criteria. And if your AMH skeleton is later found to have (say) 40%

Yes, the art for the most part is perfect and done in such a way as to make the animals appear animated when moving through the cave with a torch. There are no mess-ups, such as an image that is started and then erased. The pictures were created in one go by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. It is no more primitive than a comic book drawing.

It is "racism" to notice that at a certain period in history one race made achievements in civilization that another did not? But one thing is for sure, we can always count on psuedo-intellectuals like yourself raising the "racism" smokescreen in lieu of intellegent discussion of the topic.

Neanderthals were in Europe by themselves for hundreds of thousands of years without making caving paintings. We're to suppose that they happened to pick up the habit just when modern humans moved into the area. That would be a massive coincidence. It's possible, but unlikely.

There is also very little in common between the earliest cave art attributed to Homo Sapiens and any of the cave art attributed to Neanderthals - very different styles, very different formats, very different in nature all round.

The paintings in France also include proto-writing next to the paintings, but no such symbols exist here.

Most important of all, the paintings attributed to Neanderthals include fish that Neanderthals ate at the time and Homo Sapiens did not.

So if Neanderthals are present and Homo Sapiens are not, we've opportunity taken care of.Neanderthals had been mucking around with ochre at the time, Homo Sapiens didn't utilize it for a long time after, so that's means.The pictures show Neanderthal food not Homo Sapien food, which gives motive.No proto-writing and no utilization of the 3D nature of the rock surface means no continuity with the French cave paintings, so Homo Sapiens are sans continuity.

The cave paintings in France clearly showed artistic ability, even genius. These Neanderthal artifacts, though, obviously involve nothing more than picking up a spray can and spraying it around his hand.
If you doubt me when I say that isn't art, just try selling something like that at Southeby's.... Never mind.

That is part of the joke, but at that, it really may have been applied by a DeWalt airbrush. I also wanted to add in a different joke about early attempts at fingerprinting, and more successful examples at the Hoover building in DC. Maybe that would have been better.

The handprints, perhaps, but the pictures of fish were somewhat more stylized and were definitely not stencil-based. I'd consider those abstractions and therefore art at its most simplistic. Much more crucially, though, it's stuff with a totally different intent.

If you're saying the Neanderthal pictures were extremely simplistic and lacked any obvious "thought"* - they were depictions at a very mechanical level - then I'd totally agree. If you're saying the French pictures showed enormous thought and mindfulness - even in the kiddy training area (there was a section set aside to train kids on painting) - then again I'd totally agree. There was an incredible level of sentience involved.

If we go apples-to-apples, there were sections of the French caves that had hand paintings. But they showed awareness and no small amount of ingenuity. Several would have required platforms to be set up, for example. Not easy in such a confined space.

And, yes, if IQ is generalized as the ration of what a person can think/know vs what you'd expect of them, we can get a feel for their IQ. I'd consider proto-flipbook animation, haziness to depict motion, and relief to convey stereoscopic images to be well above the 48% above the average person of the time, and an IQ of 148 is all MENSA requires. So if you want to call the French painters geniuses I'd have to agree.

*Given that Neanderthals diverged from homo sapiens so far back, it is possible that their thought processes are too alien for modern humans to comprehend, that we're looking for the wrong signals, the wrong visual cues. It is possible. Unlikely, though, but possible. Doesn't really alter the conclusion, though, which is that it wasn't a Homo Sapien mindset. Whatever it was or wasn't, it wasn't that. This raises an intriguing side-question, though - how WOULD we recognize art from an alien mind?

Where did you get the 5,000 year figure? The article itself cites clear evidence of human habitation in Europe 41,600 years ago, which is before the earliest painting's date of 40,800 years ago. There are sites even earlier than that. Plus, there is a fundamental problem in that preservation events are rare, so humans were no doubt in the area long before we'd ever find evidence of them.

Meanwhile, Neanderthals had been around in Europe for 300,000 years. Even if your number were right, for 98.3% of their ex

Until homo sapiens moved in, there was nobody willing to buy their art. Who knows? Given enough time, they might have realized that the stupid humans will even pay good money for 'art' painted by chips. Or Adam Sandler movies.

In the mid-1950s abstract expressionism [metmuseum.org] was the rage. Congo [treehugger.com] was a successful artist. Here are some of his paintings [artistsezine.com]. Some sold for about $30,000. Most impressive, given Congo was a chimpanzee.
It’s not surprising if Neanderthals did early cave art, cave art surpassing its contemporary human art.
After all Congo has already established, artistic talent isn’t restricted to Homo sapiens sapiens [wadsworth.com].

theres a bit of difference tween a chimp ploping paint strokes in a semi random fashion to make modern "art" and the cave paintings clearly depicting characters doing specific actions. When Congo starts drawing his family actively hunting a beast and roasting it over a fire then I will concede your argument.

Congo’s plopped semi random fashioned paint stokes sold for $30,000 in the mid-1950s. That’s indubitable financial success. As to whether Congo’s art constitutes ‘genuine’ art, that’s a matter of idiosyncrasy, usually left to art critics, not/. posters. Human hubris is seductive. We overestimate our own talents, while underestimating the talents of other species.

Arguing something isn't art isn't left to critics, it's left to idiots who don't understand what art is. If it means something to someone, it's art.

So the term 'art' is meaningless, then. Good to know.

"Art" is a term that is far too generic to have the meaning you want it to have, yes. You want to be able to objectively define something as being significant, but this is not possible. Not everyone agrees with you on what is beauty, on the importance of different subjects, or on what is crass. It is, by definition, subjective.

For example, If I've had a particularly emotional experience sometime in my life, certain visuals could be associated with the event. Years later, I might see a painting that shar

I was under the impression that Congo's favorite foods included bamboo stands and the raw fruits and vegetables at lunchtime. I'd advise you to take another look at those paintings.
"Bold circular loop" perhaps would be better named Ripe banana and green Pepper Still Life.

well, IMO that makes since, trying to eat while not being eaten kind of trumps cave art in my book of priorities in the ages before cultivation. Of course that all depends on the definition of swift... thats a bit open ended considering the time scales involved. IE a handful of generations, or a handful of centuries?

Either you have something to say or you don't. "Could it be?" articles instantly give the impression that your on the same ground as "Did aliens build the pyramids?" which will be followed (after an hour of time wasting) with "we may never know."

Look there is no other evidence of Neanderthals doing such paintings elsewhere, there is no record of the development of such techniques in Neanderthal artefacts. Their tool kit had not changed for hundreds of thousands of years. Under these circumstances, we need to independently confirm the dating techniques are good and reliable. Otherwise it would end up as an egg in their faces like the claim of faster than light travel reported last year. It turned out to be clock calibration issue. Go through the dat

The dating technique (uranium series dating) is good. Very solid ; very appropriate for the age range under consideration (where carbon-14 dating is getting towards it's inherent limits).

As always with real-world samples, the bigger question is whether you've got an appropriate sample. In this case, some of the paintings have a partial overgrowth of calcium carbonate (which will pick up some uranium during deposition, then hopefully "close" as a system). This is the material that you sample, and it gives y

Neanderthals were known for shaping stone artwork, the neanderthal Venus are quite well known, so there's no reason to think they lacked the ability to paint. Developmentally Neanderthals were very close to modern humans. There is debate about some problem solving and complex tool making but in many ways they were hard to separate from humans. They even developed music and the flute.

So who's to say that the only preserved drawings we discovered were from a Master Artist of the time? What if it's the random scribblings of a child or not-to-artistic adult even (If you looked at my wall scrawlings, absent carbon dating, you would also think they were created by a less-evolved species)

I find this unlikely. There is a clear history of all social intelligence and knowledge coming from Mesopotamia. Before that we knew nothing. Knowledge is never killed and we would never kill it on pupose. What's next? Someone will tell us the great pyramid is older then 4500 years and that math constants such as Phi and Pi are much older then our history records. Ludicrous. Humans have never been more intelligent then we are today and that process is clearly linear. Most of our knownledge stems from around

I haven't figured out what dating experts know about neanderthals. Yeah, sure, some early "modern humans" may have dated some neanderthals. In fact, there have been a few reports that we all have neanderthal genes in our makeup. But, today's dating experts? What do they know about neanderthals? Maybe - just maybe - those dating experts know something about Spaniards, but forget the neanderthals.

Australian Aboriginals, "modern humans" go back 40,000 years of living in Australia, and they had cave art. Some were still living in the same old way until only about 100 years ago.
Spaniards, neaderthals? What's the difference?